Cut cut cut. No no no. It’s a good thing that Milwaukee County
Executive Scott Walker isn’t in charge of childhood nutrition in our
homes. All of our children would be dead of starvation.

Unfortunately Walker is in charge of funding for transportation and
he’s deciding which routes are worthy of funding for a few more years
and which ones are falling victim to his budget hacksaw. It’s been
pretty difficult to get people to ride the bus if you’re eliminating
the stops near their house or near their destination. If you want to
make it tougher, and clearly Walker does, go ahead and raise fares to
among the highest in the country.

You would think that there wouldn’t be much in the way of consequences when gas is at an all time high, right?

Wrong.

Bus ridership in Milwaukee has dropped to the lowest it has been in 33 years and there are further cuts in store for the ailing transit system which is the only mass transit option for County residents.

So what is the solution? The City of Milwaukee should take over mass
transit. If voters in the suburbs want to continue to return Walker to
the County Executive position, and it seems increasingly clear that
they do, they have sent a message that they do not value mass transit.
Why then, should City residents suffer under the clearly incompetant
hands of Walker.

For all the naysaying that Walker’s allies on Republican run talk
radio stations like WISN and WTMJ say, mass transit is viable in
Milwaukee County. Just a few years ago, when democrats used to still
run the county, Milwaukee County won awards for having the highest
farebox recovery in the entire nation.

The entire nation.

But now, under Walker, whenever costs rise due to inflation he looks
to make cuts to the core responsibilities of Milwaukee County —
transit, parks, social services and criminal justice.

As transit routes are cut and fares are increased by Walker,
ridership will continue to plunge. Walker’s answer? More cuts. Higher
fares.

Simple economics eludes the man.

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